I agree with all that, but..............I WILL NEVER read another post by JoeR, that even COULD BE on an emotional level!!! It took me 20 minutes to stop crying long enough to respond. What next, a story from your childhood, fearturing Ol' Yeller??????

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__________________ Goodbye Sean..........Vaya Con Dios
thankyou Joe.......“God made certain people to play football. He was one of them.” – Joe Gibbs

Vets suck! Ive had my dog SWOL for almost 8 years now. For the past 5 he has had allergies that cause this nasty mucus to cover his eyes. The vets (several different ones) cant seem to figure anything out after thousands of dollars of tests. So I pay $80 a month for a 3.5g tube of ointment. REALLY $80 for a tube of antiboitic eye ointment, WTF!. and it really doesnt even help that much, i usually get a better reaction from him when i flush his eyes with the over the counter stuff from CVS for $5. F vets! if the answer isnt staring them in the face, then they have no clue.

I don't think that most vets are out to gouge everyone. Hell it's tough enough to properly diagnose people sometimes and we can at least communicate what's wrong with us.

I think you have a very optimistic view, I think that vets are on par with auto mechanics. Every once in a while you can find a good honest one, but mostly its people who are there to gouge you, and sell you crap you dont need.

I don't think that most vets are out to gouge everyone. Hell it's tough enough to properly diagnose people sometimes and we can at least communicate what's wrong with us.

Only a select few are out to gouge. But to prevent against getting sued, they all have to assume that every owner wants to do everything in their power to get the pet healthy, including spending tens of thousands on tests and surgeries.

For most pet owners, the owner wants the vet to tell them, before testing, what the possible diagnoses are, what the costs of treating each diagnosis are, and the costs involved in testing for the diagnosis. Most owners will be able to rule out a number of treatment pathways right from the get-go based on cost. But vets instead cover their ass and recommend you do everything from A to Z. And when you opt not to, they make you sign that waiver JR mentioned, saying "I'm a bad pet owner, I'm going against vet's advice."

It's not a gouge, it's the cost of living in this ridiculous CYA, overly-litigious society.

The best thing for dog owners is having a nice healthy dog and just when they start to have health problems they get flattened by a car.

Maybe you were trying to be funny or maybe you weren't, but all the same I don't find that cool. My sister's friend had a dog once who lived absolutely fine (It was a little weiner dog, I forget what their true name is) who got out of the yard once and she disappeared for a couple days and they discovered she got ran over near a school about a mile away from where she lived. That's the worst kind of pet death there is imo, one day you have a fine, healthy, normal pet and the next they get out and boom they're gone.

I think you're right about CYA and lawsuits. They want to make sure they don't leave themselves exposed to a big suit. Sign of the times I guess.

I do not think we can blame those greedy lawyers (actually their greedy clients) for this one. Generally speaking, vets are not exposed to big lawsuits. I cannot, for example, get $1M if a vet commits malpractice and kills my dog. Typically, if a vet seriously harms or kills your pet, you are only entitled to compensatory damages (i.e., the cost to buy the dog). I guess if you own a prize-winning racehorse and a vet kills your horse, you might have a claim, but otherwise you generally do not.

I do not think we can blame those greedy lawyers (actually their greedy clients) for this one. Generally speaking, vets are not exposed to big lawsuits. I cannot, for example, get $1M if a vet commits malpractice and kills my dog. Typically, if a vet seriously harms or kills your pet, you are only entitled to compensatory damages (i.e., the cost to buy the dog). I guess if you own a prize-winning racehorse and a vet kills your horse, you might have a claim, but otherwise you generally do not.

True that, you don't win much from dog lawsuits. Takes away the incentive to cover ass, doesn't it. Maybe they are just gouging?

If I'm correct some states maybe most or all look at pets as personal property. I'm not sure if it was a case in Virginia or in another state which received national attention but it involved a pet owner suing for a large sum of money due to the death of their pet. Not sure how far it went up in the court system but the final ruling was they are personal property.

As far as I know, all states treat pets as personal property. I'm glad you know the end result of the case. Most people think that if person A sues person B for $1 billion upon some ridiculous claim, then person A gets $1 billion. It's no wonder why people think our legal system is far more out of whack than it really is.

I recently tried to get my little black pug spayed and a simple 65$ fee turned into close to 500$ in about 3 min. The lady was throwing all of these extra options... IV fluids, antibiotics, extra pain medicine...

They tack on fee's like crazy... I would be more inclined to pay some flat rate then be berated with all of these unnecessary options like I was buying a used car or something.

Making me very frustrated...

__________________ This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!

I know the pain of Vet visits. We inherited my wife's bichon frise because her stepdad was moving and said you either take it, or she goes to a rescue. The dog has a soft spot in my heart because it's my wife last connection to her Mother, who passed 4 years ago.

Overall the dog is in great health (she's 13), but the dog goes to more specialists than I do. She has skin and eye problems, so she's sees a dermatologist and an ophthalmologist. Eye drops for her right eye, and steroids for her skin problems. But I guess it could be worse.

But these specialists do not nickel and dime us to death like the regular Vet does. Drives me nuts the amount of stuff they want you to do.